Talking turkey with Foods of All Nations’ Bill Yenovkian

Bill Yenovkian laughs as he attempts to describe the perfect Thanksgiving turkey “without sounding pornographic.” You want a “full, nice-shaped bird,” the longtime Foods of All Nations butcher begins. And then he stops, embarrassed, and tries again: “You want a rounded, plump breast…”

Why don’t we start with the number of people you’re serving and how big a bird you should buy, Yenovkian suggests. Ask yourself a few questions: How many adults will be at your table? How many children? What’s the makeup of men, women and college-aged boys? Are any of your guests vegetarians? Do you want leftovers? Are you big eaters? “It’s not as simple as buying a boneless piece of meat and guessing between six and eight ounces per person,” he says.

“One and a half to two pounds per person is a good rule of thumb,” Yenovkian says. “If you’re serving five people, you’ll want a 10- to 12-pound turkey—a 12-pound turkey is not a very big bird when you look at it. And you should err on the larger side because nobody wants to run short. It’s not that expensive to buy a couple extra pounds.”

The next step is choosing between fresh and frozen. A turkey is labeled fresh if it hasn’t been cooled below 26 degrees Fahrenheit, while a frozen bird has been chilled below zero degrees Fahrenheit (and needs plenty of time to defrost). There are also hard-chilled turkeys, which have been cooled below 26 degrees, but not below zero.

But fresh and frozen aren’t the only turkey differentiators you’ll encounter. You’ll also need to decide if you want your bird to be organic (raised on 100 percent organic feed, given access to the outdoors and no antibiotics); kosher (a grain-fed, antibiotic-free turkey that’s been processed under rabbinical supervision and soaked in a salt brine); free-range (a turkey that has access to the outdoors); or natural (a bird that’s been minimally processed and has no added artificial ingredients or colors). Then there are heritage breeds: Most store-bought turkeys are Broad Breasted Whites, but farmers such as Judd and Cari Culver raise historic breeds like the KellyBronze that can be found running wild at Heritage Glen, the couple’s Crozet farm. The pair’s slow-growing birds sell for more than $12 a pound and receive no antibiotics, feed additives or growth hormones, and they are hand-plucked, dry-hung and aged before being sold.

Among the three different birds Foods of All Nations carries are Polyface Farm turkeys, which are GMO-free and live in a paddock that is moved every other day to a new pasture that’s been “mowed” by cows, so the grass is shorter and the birds eat tender, fresh sprouts. And over on Garth Road at Timbercreek Farm, the birds are given GMO-free feed to supplement what they consume while grazing and foraging in mobile houses that are also rotated frequently.

Turkey, however, isn’t the only game in town. Yenovkian gets requests for goose, duck and the occasional turducken, a combination of turkey, duck and chicken. (“We have a hard time sourcing them,” he says. “And honestly, they’re a ridiculous amount of work.”) Some people do a Thanksgiving beef roast, a standing rib roast or a tied tenderloin, he says, but the vast majority of his customers go with turkey: Yenovkian estimates he sells about 400 birds, “which is a lot for a small store; it’s a week of chaos, but we try to keep it as organized and running as smoothly as we can.”

When asked about the centerpiece of his own Thanksgiving meal, Yenovkian says, “I like turkey. There’s a big difference between moving hundreds of pounds of turkey and sitting down and enjoying one with friends and family.”

The day after

Thanksgiving was fun, but the party’s over. Now what about all those leftovers? We turned to Mike Perry, the chef de cuisine at Harvest Moon Catering, for advice. He suggested these simple-to-make, all-inclusive turkey sliders. “They can be a bit messy,” he says. “But they’re worth it!”

8 soft rolls, cut in half and buttered

1 pound sliced or pulled, roasted turkey

1 cup turkey gravy

1 cup mashed potatoes

1 cup stuffing

½ cup cranberry sauce (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Arrange the bottoms of the rolls in a buttered casserole dish. Equally divide and spoon the mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy onto the bottom half of the rolls. Layer the turkey on top of the gravy and spoon the cranberry sauce (if using) over the turkey. Put the tops of the rolls in place and cover the assembled sliders with foil. Bake for about 10 minutes. Remove the foil cover and let the sliders rest for a few minutes. Dig in!

There’s only one right way to eat dessert: at every meal. Start with breakfast—a sticky, gooey donut (okay, fine, you can put bacon on it)—then a sip of a sugary shake, and later, a pillowy pile of tiramisu and a mug of cocoa before bed. In this issue, we’ll show you how to appease your […]

As they peruse a restaurant wine list or browse the shelves of the local wine shop, do most imbibers know how all of those foreign bottles made their way here? From finding a promising producer in the European countryside, to navigating a logistic and regulatory thicket to usher the product

Restoration has always been important to the Ramsey family: There’s Luke, whose company Ramsey Restoration focuses on the construction and preservation of historical property, and who learned how to build log cabins from his father. And there’s Adrienne, who formerly served as a spokesperson

New Year’s is more of a drinking-and-kissing holiday than one meant for feasting. But don’t let a good start-of-the-year meal go overlooked, especially if you might leave some luck on the table. We asked some local food folks to cook us up New Year’s Day nosh that was traditional (to capitalize

Chef Mark Gresge missed making soup. From 1992 to 2014, Gresge ran the beloved local French restaurant L’étoile. “To me,” Gresge says, “French country cooking was the perfect cuisine. Depth of flavor, locally sourced product, a true sense of region in the cooking.” L’étoile had always run

There are a lot of people around here who are passionate about meat, from Reid’s longtime butcher to a club that opens your mind (and stomach) to new cuts. This issue, we’re introducing you to the right people, places and dishes to satisfy any craving. Let’s meat! By Nathan Alderman, Joanna

One of the first things that catches your eye when you walk onto the patio of Meriwether Springs Vineyard & Brewery is the teepee. It’s made of gray canvas, about seven feet tall, and it’s flanked by a play castle and an assortment of balls, hula hoops, and Frisbees. Beyond this is a

For proponents of raw milk, there’s simply no substitute: “No other health food is so easy and so complete to consume,” says Robby Lisenby of Sweet Land Farm. Fans of unpasteurized, unhomogenized milk from grass-fed cows say it contains more enzymes, fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals than

If the word “catering” makes you think of starched napkins and green bean almondine, here’s another side of the business: casual oyster roasts, where guests can slurp down the seafood along with Southern sides like cornbread and Brunswick stew. Ted Anderson, of Anderson’s Catering, says oyster

When Mark Thompson took his leave of Starr Hill Brewery in February of 2015, it felt like a changing of the local craft beer guard. Thompson was replaced as Starr Hill’s head brewer by then 29-year-old Robbie O’Cain, and other local new kids, anchored by Champion and Three Notch’d brewing

Matthew Bousquet hasn’t been in Charlottesville for very long—the Michelin-starred chef from San Francisco was hired to head up the kitchen at the newly reimagined Clifton hotel this summer—but he’s already discovered the city’s secret sauce: our abundance of fresh, local ingredients. This

This may not be your quickest path to a bikini body, but how ya gonna argue with fried chicken? Or fried pickles? Or fried Oreos, for that matter? This issue, we’re taking a deep dive into hot oil (metaphorically, of course—safety first!), with a hefty helping of greasy, crispy, fatty treats to

Summer is a lighthearted time. While in colder months we may enjoy ruminating on deep thoughts while swirling something weighty in our glass—like port, or a full-bodied Sangiovese—summer calls for beverages that are pure fun, just like our pastimes. But is it as simple as just switching from

One glance at Zocalo’s drink menu on a warm day and there’s no question what you’ll imbibe: a margarita. The question then becomes, which margarita? Zocalo offers a few, and it can be hard to decide between a salty-but-sweet classic or a smoky Mezcal (for the uninitiated, Mezcal is to tequila

“I could never live without cheese!” That was one of Ashley Addington’s mottoes. She’d been vegetarian since she was a tween, after seeing videos of animals being “processed” in what was supposed to be a humane facility. “It really upset me…to watch a life violently end for someone’s

Diane Burns’ journey has taken her to some pretty interesting places—but it’s a good bet that her current place of work, Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards, is one of the most beautiful. Burns is the on-site horticulturist, and she tends neat garden beds that hug the perimeter of the tasting room

Corn-lovers unite: It’s summer and officially the best time to dig into the sweet, versatile veggie. But what’s the best way to enjoy corn this summer? Well, how much time you got? According to Junction chef Melissa Close-Hart, corn can be used “all over the place” and shows up in cuisine

Raise your hand if you’ve ever “accidentally” forgotten to say when as the server was grating Parmesan onto your bowl of pasta. Or if you’ve ever taken a bite directly out of the wedge of brie you bought to kick off dinner. We’ll be the first to admit: The way (whey?) to our hearts is […]

“Food can affect you from a memory standpoint, like when smelling a red sauce reminds you of your grandma’s house,” says Red Pump Kitchen’s Kendall Moore. “We can do this with perfumed drinks, too.” Last fall, the downtown restaurant’s drink menu incorporated elements like sage-infused

Too tired to go food shopping, and bored with the same old take-out pizza? Home delivery options abound to make sure the cupboard is never bare. Shenandoah Produce Farms Lots of people subscribe to summertime CSAs and pick up their bags of produce each week, but Shenandoah Produce goes a step